M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
2 Now Naomi had an in-law there in Bethlehem who was a very wealthy man. His name was Boaz.
2 One day Ruth said to Naomi, “Perhaps I can go out into the fields of some kind man to glean the free grain[a] behind his reapers.”
And Naomi said, “All right, dear daughter. Go ahead.”
3 So she did. And as it happened, the field where she found herself belonged to Boaz, this relative of Naomi’s husband.
4-5 Boaz arrived from the city while she was there. After exchanging greetings with the reapers he said to his foreman, “Hey, who’s that girl over there?”
6 And the foreman replied, “It’s that girl from the land of Moab who came back with Naomi. 7 She asked me this morning if she could pick up the grains dropped by the reapers, and she has been at it ever since except for a few minutes’ rest over there in the shade.”
8-9 Boaz went over and talked to her. “Listen, my child,” he said to her. “Stay right here with us to glean; don’t think of going to any other fields. Stay right behind my women workers; I have warned the young men not to bother you; when you are thirsty, go and help yourself to the water.”
10-11 She thanked him warmly. “How can you be so kind to me?” she asked. “You must know I am only a foreigner.”
“Yes, I know,” Boaz replied, “and I also know about all the love and kindness you have shown your mother-in-law since the death of your husband, and how you left your father and mother in your own land and have come here to live among strangers. 12 May the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge, bless you for it.”
13 “Oh, thank you, sir,” she replied. “You are so good to me, and I’m not even one of your workers!”
14 At lunchtime Boaz called to her, “Come and eat with us.”
So she sat with his reapers and he gave her food,[b] more than she could eat. 15 And when she went back to work again, Boaz told his young men to let her glean right among the sheaves without stopping her, 16 and to snap off some heads of barley and drop them on purpose for her to glean, and not to make any remarks. 17 So she worked there all day, and in the evening when she had beaten out the barley she had gleaned, it came to a whole bushel! 18 She carried it back into the city and gave it to her mother-in-law, with what was left of her lunch.
19 “So much!” Naomi exclaimed. “Where in the world did you glean today? Praise the Lord for whoever was so kind to you.” So Ruth told her mother-in-law all about it and mentioned that the owner of the field was Boaz.
20 “Praise the Lord for a man like that! God has continued his kindness to us as well as to your dead husband!” Naomi cried excitedly. “Why, that man is one of our closest relatives!”[c]
21 “Well,” Ruth told her, “he said to come back and stay close behind his reapers until the entire field is harvested.”
22 “This is wonderful!” Naomi exclaimed. “Do as he has said. Stay with his girls right through the whole harvest; you will be safer there than in any other field!”
23 So Ruth did and gleaned with them until the end of the barley harvest, and then the wheat harvest too.
27 Arrangements were finally made to start us on our way to Rome by ship; so Paul and several other prisoners were placed in the custody of an officer named Julius, a member of the imperial guard. 2 We left on a boat[a] that was scheduled to make several stops along the Turkish coast. I should add that Aristarchus, a Greek from Thessalonica, was with us.
3 The next day when we docked at Sidon, Julius was very kind to Paul and let him go ashore to visit with friends and receive their hospitality. 4 Putting to sea from there, we encountered headwinds that made it difficult to keep the ship on course, so we sailed north of Cyprus between the island and the mainland[b] 5 and passed along the coast of the provinces of Cilicia and Pamphylia, landing at Myra, in the province of Lycia. 6 There our officer found an Egyptian ship from Alexandria, bound for Italy, and put us aboard.
7-8 We had several days of rough sailing, and finally neared Cnidus;[c] but the winds had become too strong, so we ran across to Crete, passing the port of Salome. Beating into the wind with great difficulty and moving slowly along the southern coast, we arrived at Fair Havens, near the city of Lasea. 9 There we stayed for several days. The weather was becoming dangerous for long voyages by then because it was late in the year,[d] and Paul spoke to the ship’s officers about it.
10 “Sirs,” he said, “I believe there is trouble ahead if we go on—perhaps shipwreck, loss of cargo, injuries, and death.” 11 But the officers in charge of the prisoners listened more to the ship’s captain and the owner than to Paul. 12 And since Fair Havens was an exposed[e] harbor—a poor place to spend the winter—most of the crew advised trying to go further up the coast to Phoenix in order to winter there; Phoenix was a good harbor with only a northwest and southwest exposure.
13 Just then a light wind began blowing from the south, and it looked like a perfect day for the trip; so they pulled up anchor and sailed along close to shore.
14-15 But shortly afterwards the weather changed abruptly, and a heavy wind of typhoon strength (a “northeaster,” they called it) caught the ship and blew it out to sea. They tried at first to face back to shore but couldn’t, so they gave up and let the ship run before the gale.
16 We finally sailed behind a small island named Clauda, where with great difficulty we hoisted aboard the lifeboat that was being towed behind us, 17 and then banded the ship with ropes to strengthen the hull. The sailors were afraid of being driven across to the quicksands of the African coast,[f] so they lowered the topsails and were thus driven before the wind.
18 The next day as the seas grew higher, the crew began throwing the cargo overboard. 19 The following day they threw out the tackle and anything else they could lay their hands on. 20 The terrible storm raged unabated many days,[g] until at last all hope was gone.
21 No one had eaten for a long time, but finally Paul called the crew together and said, “Men, you should have listened to me in the first place and not left Fair Havens—you would have avoided all this injury and loss! 22 But cheer up! Not one of us will lose our lives, even though the ship will go down.
23 “For last night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve stood beside me 24 and said, ‘Don’t be afraid, Paul—for you will surely stand trial before Caesar! What’s more, God has granted your request and will save the lives of all those sailing with you.’ 25 So take courage! For I believe God! It will be just as he said! 26 But we will be shipwrecked on an island.”
27 About midnight on the fourteenth night of the storm, as we were being driven to and fro on the Adriatic Sea, the sailors suspected land was near. 28 They sounded and found 120 feet of water below them. A little later they sounded again and found only 90 feet. 29 At this rate they knew they would soon be driven ashore; and fearing rocks along the coast, they threw out four anchors from the stern and prayed for daylight.
30 Some of the sailors planned to abandon the ship and lowered the emergency boat as though they were going to put out anchors from the prow. 31 But Paul said to the soldiers and commanding officer, “You will all die unless everyone stays aboard.” 32 So the soldiers cut the ropes and let the boat fall off.
33 As the darkness gave way to the early morning light, Paul begged everyone to eat. “You haven’t touched food for two weeks,” he said. 34 “Please eat something now for your own good! For not a hair of your heads shall perish!”
35 Then he took some hardtack and gave thanks to God before them all, and broke off a piece and ate it. 36 Suddenly everyone felt better and began eating, 37 all 276 of us—for that is the number we had aboard. 38 After eating, the crew lightened the ship further by throwing all the wheat overboard.
39 When it was day, they didn’t recognize the coastline, but noticed a bay with a beach and wondered whether they could get between the rocks and be driven up onto the beach. 40 They finally decided to try. Cutting off the anchors and leaving them in the sea, they lowered the rudders, raised the foresail, and headed ashore. 41 But the ship hit a sandbar[h] and ran aground. The bow of the ship stuck fast, while the stern was exposed to the violence of the waves and began to break apart.
42 The soldiers advised their commanding officer to let them kill the prisoners lest any of them swim ashore and escape. 43 But Julius[i] wanted to spare Paul, so he told them no. Then he ordered all who could swim to jump overboard and make for land, 44 and the rest to try for it on planks and debris from the broken ship. So everyone escaped safely ashore!
37 Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, did not appoint Coniah (King Jehoiakim’s son) to be the new king of Judah.[a] Instead he chose Zedekiah (son of Josiah). 2 But neither King Zedekiah nor his officials nor the people who were left in the land listened to what the Lord said through Jeremiah. 3 Nevertheless, King Zedekiah sent Jehucal (son of Shelemiah) and Zephaniah the priest (son of Maaseiah) to ask Jeremiah to pray for them. 4 (Jeremiah had not been imprisoned yet, so he could come and go as he pleased.)
5 When the army of Pharaoh Hophra of Egypt appeared at the southern border of Judah to relieve the besieged city of Jerusalem, the Babylonian army withdrew from Jerusalem to fight the Egyptians.
6 Then the Lord sent this message to Jeremiah: 7 “The Lord, the God of Israel, says: Tell the king of Judah, who sent you to ask me what is going to happen, that Pharaoh’s army, though it came here to help you, is about to return in flight to Egypt! The Babylonians shall defeat them and send them scurrying home. 8 These Babylonians shall capture this city and burn it to the ground. 9 Don’t fool yourselves that the Babylonians are gone for good. They aren’t! 10 Even if you destroyed the entire Babylonian army until there was only a handful of survivors and they lay wounded in their tents, yet they would stagger out and defeat you and put this city to the torch!”
11 When the Babylonian army set out from Jerusalem to engage Pharaoh’s army in battle, 12 Jeremiah started to leave the city to go to the land of Benjamin, to see the property he had bought.[b] 13 But as he was walking through the Benjamin Gate, a sentry arrested him as a traitor, claiming he was defecting to the Babylonians. The guard making the arrest was Irijah (son of Shelemiah, grandson of Hananiah).
14 “That’s not true,” Jeremiah said. “I have no intention whatever of doing any such thing!”
But Irijah wouldn’t listen; he took Jeremiah before the city officials. 15-16 They were incensed with Jeremiah and had him flogged and put into the dungeon under the house of Jonathan the scribe, which had been converted into a prison. Jeremiah was kept there for several days, 17 but eventually King Zedekiah sent for him to come to the palace secretly. The king asked him if there was any recent message from the Lord. “Yes,” said Jeremiah, “there is! You shall be defeated by the king of Babylon!”
18 Then Jeremiah broached the subject of his imprisonment. “What have I ever done to deserve this?” he asked the king. “What crime have I committed? Tell me what I have done against you or your officials or the people? 19 Where are those prophets now who told you that the king of Babylon would not come? 20 Listen, O my lord the king: I beg you, don’t send me back to that dungeon, for I’ll die there.”
21 Then King Zedekiah commanded that Jeremiah not be returned to the dungeon but be placed in the palace prison instead, and that he be given a small loaf of fresh bread every day as long as there was any left in the city. So Jeremiah was kept in the palace prison.[c]
10 Lord, why are you standing aloof and far away? Why do you hide when I need you the most?
2 Come and deal with all these proud and wicked men who viciously persecute the poor. Pour upon these men the evil they planned for others! 3 For these men brag of all their evil lusts; they revile God and congratulate those the Lord abhors, whose only goal in life is money.
4 These wicked men, so proud and haughty, seem to think that God is dead.[a] They wouldn’t think of looking for him! 5 Yet there is success in everything they do, and their enemies fall before them. They do not see your punishment awaiting them. 6 They boast that neither God nor man can ever keep them down—somehow they’ll find a way!
7 Their mouths are full of profanity and lies and fraud. They are always boasting of their evil plans. 8 They lurk in dark alleys of the city and murder passersby. 9 Like lions they crouch silently, waiting to pounce upon the poor. Like hunters they catch their victims in their traps. 10 The unfortunate are overwhelmed by their superior strength and fall beneath their blows. 11 “God isn’t watching,” they say to themselves; “he’ll never know!”
12 O Lord, arise! O God, crush them! Don’t forget the poor or anyone else in need. 13 Why do you let the wicked get away with this contempt for God? For they think that God will never call them to account. 14 Lord, you see what they are doing. You have noted each evil act. You know what trouble and grief they have caused. Now punish them. O Lord, the poor man trusts himself to you; you are known as the helper of the helpless. 15 Break the arms of these wicked men. Go after them until the last of them is destroyed.
16 The Lord is King forever and forever. Those who follow other gods shall be swept from his land.
17 Lord, you know the hopes of humble people. Surely you will hear their cries and comfort their hearts by helping them. 18 You will be with the orphans and all who are oppressed, so that mere earthly man will terrify them no longer.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.